This was a huge deal in my city recently with lots of controversy. Meghan Murphy wanted to hold a talk on women's rights and what that looks like in women's safe spaces that are being (according to her) steamrolled by trans women who act with male aggression. Her primary thesis is that there's not enough dialogue or distinction happening between the various safe spaces required between women born as women vs. trans women. The result is that the women's rights movement is because set back due to attacks by "women" who are essentially behaving identically as oppressive men who are trying to force their way into women's safe spaces.

There was a huge uproar about this. The Vancouver Public Library said that they didn't support the talk but they were holding it to honour free speech. The mayor of Vancouver came out to say that he didn't support this kind of talk.

I do think that the way she put some things sounded like TERF, like how she kept referring to trans women as men entering women's safe spaces. But she made some other points that I found interesting... like how nobody can clearly define what a trans person is, and now we are creating laws dictating the speech that people have to use regarding pronouns; or how we can't just lump all kinds of women into one category "women" because women who were born as women have different needs than trans women. She cites many examples.

I can see why the talk was controversial but at the same time it seems like an important conversation to have happen. TERFing really is a thing on the one hand, and on another I can see why distinguishing between different kinds of safe spaces is important. One example given was a human rights claim made in Ontario by a woman who was fleeing abuse and staying in a shelter. A person walked in who all intents and purposes looked like a man, with army boots and everything, but said he was a woman. The shelter didn't accept the abused woman's complaint because they were being "inclusive". The woman didn't feel safe and had to leave.

So I'm curious how we draw the line. I'm not a TERF. I think trans men/women should be treated as such, but I don't think the matter is cut and dry. I also don't support pro-speech laws. All the other social movements had to fight to be recognized and also educate the public through social discourse. It doesn't make sense to jump right into legislation where we are telling people what they have to say (a first in Canada) before we even clearly define the issue.

What do you think?

P.S. 3000th post yayyyy!

The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. -W.A.

I cant lie, I find most of the "safe spaces" parts amusing. Women wanting to be free to talk and speak what they think and believe freely. If you dont get it, your getting closer to male equality everyday as cis men get attacked regularly. It falls in line with one groups movement is another groups plight much like transgender and feminism, homosexual and cis males or feminist and male. Combative rather than cooperative, absorbed in goals but lacking clear non selfish perspective and taking sensitivity to the extreme over common sense.

Also find it fitting that feminist and trans were united now many women logically and publicly recognize that facts are inescapable and transgender must remain a seperate category from cis women if not for only womens needs (rolls eyes) . Human interference doesnt necessarily chabge the past and we should all have rights to not just safe spaces but freedom in general.

Lastly I also find it funny that our conversations here are later rehashed in media roughly 5-6 months later I hear someone saying the same things I was thinking. Which leaves me with hope that society will eventually reach a non discriminating compromise that truly is good for everyone. Even so, it is impossible to please everyone nor should that be the goal, fairness and justice are the goal.

This feels like it's skirting some dangerous territory. Trans women are women, trans men are men. I think there is a bit of a tenancy with women to have an emotion which is kind of like you just got here, you have no idea what it's been like this whole time. But the problem with that is that we forget that they had to deal with a whole 'nother level of gender shit before transitioning and after that cis women haven't had to deal with. There's a lot to be learned there.

I don't spend basically any of my time in safe spaces so I can't speak to that but based on my experiences with trans women I find it hard to believe that the problem is their trans-ness and not a few loud people in that particular group. It is important to recognize that the safe spaces she appears to be speaking about is shelters and transition houses - which is a much different kind of safe space then I hope you're mocking skeezy.

Skimming through that article honestly she doesn't really seem to know much about the issue. It is certainly worth discussing how to handle women who have had traumatic experiences rooming with people who remind them of those experiences. The article really does throw the baby out with the bathwater though.

Another thing, as far as I know there are no laws anywhere dictating what pro-nouns people use. That's just human kindness.

The transcript is hard to get through, largely because of the many false generalizations going on about trans people, trans activism, and feminisms that don't agree with her own, as well as her continual misgendering of trans women. One sample early in the transcript:

This, coming from people who say that any boy who loves frilly pink dresses cannot possibly be just a boy who likes frilly pink dresses, but must really be a girl, which of course plays into a long history of bullying boys who step out of gender norms by accusing them of being girls.

I agree entirely that gender nonconforming behavior has many causes and manifestations, of which transitioning is only one. There may be some trans people who are gender essentialists in this way, but I don't know many who would insist that any boy who likes dresses must be a trans girl. Uh, cross dressing, drag, and simple differences in preference are well understood.

It'd take too much time to comb through the entire transcript and point out all the flaws like this. They ultimately distract from a discussion about how one might create policies in shelters that balance inclusivity (which isn't Murphy's interest but it is many feminists' interest) and individual needs.

Regarding the example of the Toronto shelter, I think employing a biologically essentialist rule (adult females only) would also reinforce a gender essentialist rule, in contradiction of Murphy's previous admission that boys can like dresses. The most surprising details in the description are how the individual presented themselves (boots, beard). The lack of surgery (and the presence of a penis) are only confirmed verbally. What if someone identifying as a woman came in with conventionally masculine dress and presentation, but they happened to be butch or tomboyish? They would perhaps seem threatening to some residents too. Would their genitals, unshown and unconfirmed, make a difference? (They shouldn't; if anyone is showing someone else their genitals without that other person's consent, that should be grounds for removal.) If a biologically essentialist rule were employed, and asking after one's genital status were required, the invasiveness of asking would reinforce the gender essentialist idea that the person coming in does not present like a stereotypical woman and therefore must be suspect. That kind of policy would do nothing to discourage people's existing gender prejudices.

Also, what if the individual transitioning was given no access to resources that would help them present as they wish? Shaving requires a razor; boots are practical if you're homeless. While uncommon, some women do grow facial hair for genetic or hormonal reasons.

So, what would be better? I can't speak much to that due to lack of experience. If the shelter had the resources to provide separate rooms with locks, maybe that would address concerns about safety. (That's a big "if" though.) Maybe requiring a confirmation by a counselor or medical professional that the individual is transitioning or has transitioned would help, though that would run into an issue of being able to afford to meet with one of them, which isn't practical if you don't have many resources. Whatever the case, I favor more discursive solutions (interview people and make a call) because they allow people to use their own judgment, alongside some guidelines rigorous enough to keep someone honest most of the time, to differentiate between "a few loud people" (to use Engima's phrase) and all people who genuinely need the services of a shelter.

^Honestly, the transcript was one of the least terrible trans exlusionary pieces I've encountered. I felt like under the right circumstances, I might be able to talk to her. I'm never sure how to recognize differences in definitions though. Like when she said she wasn't a biological essentialist, just after describing how men are inherently taller, stronger, etc. than women. She certainly has a different definition of biological essentialist than I do. Then less reconcilable was the way she defined gender. So first, I'd want to talk to her about biology, which I honestly know a deficient amount about. I took a biology class over 10 years ago, and we talked about eye color and hair color genetics. Now certainly, people can realize that eye color and hair color comes in more than two forms, that there is more than one on-off marker, even if the basics of what I learned was bb=b Bb=B bB=B and BB=B. So maybe we can reason from there that there's more to biological sex than the on-off mechanism she describes as we either are or aren't. Not to mention that current scientific understanding supports this complexity.

Aum, can you give a bit more context to the laws you mentioned? I saw that Murphy mentioned laws regarding access and I've heard of a Canadian law about a business having to have the options available to match a person's legal gender, like airlines taking passport information.

I think the library handled the situation well. They certainly want to keep themselves accessible to trans patrons and coming out with a public statement against the ideals of this talk as well as holding it at a late hour probably helps mitigate the perception of "I'm not welcome here". Of course Murphy used this as a rhetoric tool, but something I've seen done from all viewpoints to use perceived oppression to their advantage.

There are a couple things Murphy was concerned about that feels like they really ought to be addressed, specifically what makes a safe space and how someone might abuse a law to undermine it's intent. The second part of this comes up a lot, like libel. It's not particularly well defined and leaves a lot of room for abuse, but it's also a long standing and respected part of the law and even a measure to prevent abuse of the legal system in other ways. I guess I just mean to say that allowing all women, independent of appearance, in a safe space for women leaves open no more room for abuse than allowing all women who pass as cis women. Then we know that trans women are subject to a disproportionate amount of violence, even more so if there's an intersection of another oppressed demographic. So why would we not want to give shelter to the non-passing woman? If she's being admitted into a safe transition home, it's fair to assume she's also escaping abuse. Could we make the first woman feel more secure? Maybe. My experience with PTSD is that anything can be a trigger, and 'unfamiliar person' was a larger trigger than 'male-coded person'. When I was in a crisis center group, we had an incident of some members feeling unsafe about someone who was waiting in the lobby for another one of the members. Everyone affected was spoken to (not together) and the situation was resolved. Would it have been safer for each woman to be relocated if there are even funds to do that? There is some safety in having a roommate in the prevention of self-harm and a grounding element to psychotic episodes. That's basically why I got a dog. So really, I don't have an answer here, but it is worth talking about, how to serve everyone and dissuade abuse of a system meant to protect.

Okay, lastly I have a pet peeve about TERF rhetoric and it's not exactly the misgendering, which is a key feature of TERF rhetoric and more than a pet peeve. It's the way they do it. It can be confusing. Murphy isn't as easily misunderstood as others, but still unclear at times. I've encountered the use of "trans men" to describe trans women, in which case, I don't always catch that they're purposefully misgendering as they continue with 'he/him' and using birth/dead names. I would suggest to all gender critical radical feminists who don't want to legitimize transness to use phrases like 'the man who self-identifies as a woman' or 'the woman who self identifies as trans masculine' so we clearly know where they stand. I suppose there are situations where this can be used to the TERF's advantage, like the safe house situation.

I watched the full video so I got to see the whole conversation. In general, I agree with the sentiment that some of the bigger questions haven't been answered or even discussed, especially in light of the formation of new pro-speech laws. I also resonated strongly with the statement that regardless of what you call yourself, if you have a male body or a female body, society will treat you a certain way; and that MTF trans have not had to live with the consequences of having a female body their whole lives. Similarly, there is something to be said for MTF trans who still have male anatomy which informs their personal expression, i.e. increased aggression. There are biological realities about the differences between sexes that are not essentialism, they are just factual. Like men and women can be disagreeable, but on the extreme ends of agreeability and disagreeability, the most disagreeable people are men and the most agreeable people are women. Men are more aggressive and women are more compliant. It has been proven cross-culturally.

So when feminists like Murphy remark that some MTF trans are forcing their way into women's safe spaces and reacting aggressively to a desire to have these conversations, it looks very reminiscent of classic male on female oppression, even though we are dealing with self-identified women as the perpetrators. The gender identity is one argument but the biological sex of the trans women plays a role too. Unless they are taking T blockers, they have testosterone flowing through their veins at levels no different than any other biological male. Should biological women have to share a change room with a woman who has a penis? Should women's crisis shelters, whose very existence was bitterly fought for and won through the feminist movement, have to admit women who basically look like men even though they self-identify as women?

What this tells me is that the issue is complicated and I agree with Murphy 100% on her point that we need to be able to talk about this without the discussion being censored, because there are facets that we aren't addressing. Traditionally, the feminist movement was a bottom to top movement. The trans movement so far has been perpetuated by the academic institutions and has been very top down. We are seeing rules legislated that are not based on movements, and these rules are actually oppressing feminism!

There's an element of neo-marxism happening on the campuses where people's individuality - the cornerstone of western civilization - is being usurped into group identity politics and oppressive censorship. It's not "radical", it's just totalitarian. We need to be able to talk freely about these subjects without threat of censorship or violent oppression. The way the Vancouver community reacted to the very premise of this talk was utterly shocking. And the library moved the talk's time to 9pm on a weeknight to try and limit attendance, which didn't work, but was also shocking.

How do we define a trans person? How do we define a woman? Should we let children transition? Should we accommodate all children and their parents who want to use different pronouns during an age of critical social and identity development? I'm talking legally here. It's not enough to simply go by what people say because how they present will determine how society treats them, which is why some feminists don't feel that trans women are exactly the same in needs, experience, history, trauma, etc... as women who have always lived and presented as women. We can't lump all feminists together. POC women have different needs than white women. Poor women have different needs than rich women. Biological women have different needs than trans women. Why is it so controversial to say this??

Part of what the radical left is trying to do is refuse to define the language so that we can't have the conversation, and if you attempt to define anything then you are being an oppressor. But we can't just ignore centuries of gender politics, especially if we're going to make laws about pronouns. I will always respect what a trans person tells me they want to be called, but I refuse to call someone by a pronoun by force. I won't do it if the government tells me I have to. Free speech matters more to me than anything.

The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. -W.A.

Poor women have different needs than rich women. Biological women have different needs than trans women. Why is it so controversial to say this??

Because in misgendering transpeople, they deny the existence of transgender as a concept. Which is a non starter for any nuanced balancing of the rights of these groups.

In their mind they're balancing the rights between women and gender non conforming men. And as they're radical feminists this will basically always result in telling transwomen: "Go away and fight for men to accept you, stop putting the burden on women". Then when a transwoman does that, they say the resources are being misappropriated, and should be going to oppressed women (aka themselves). We saw this when they got the lottery fundings of the trans charity Mermaids suspended.

So it's just another TERF double bind. They're a hate group because there's no way for a transwoman to actually win under their model. A transwoman can do everything they want, and still get this in response:

I don't think they're a hate group. I also don't think they're deliberately mislabelling. The language of the discussion is being selected to allow for efficiency, it's not intended to override the identification of trans people. I think they made that pretty clear.

They're not saying that trans people aren't real. What they're saying is... feminism has been trying to fight for gender deconstruction for a long time, i.e. boys can be into "girl" things and girls into "boy" things. Because that goal has not yet been attained, trans women who APPEAR as men will still get the privileges that come with male presentation in society. Just because you call yourself a woman does not mean you are oppressed like women are. Therefore, those trans women do not have the same struggles as biological women.

For example, I have no gender identity, but people call me a man when they look at me. I never choose the label "man". I never decided I was one. What's a man? But society treats me that way because I present as male.

In other words, your biological sex and its presentation matter, regardless of what you think of yourself as and call yourself. Hence why a "woman" with a beard, army boots, and otherwise biologically male characteristics can cause a disruption in a rescue shelter for women fleeing male abuse. Society recognizes her as male until it's otherwise clarified, same with "women" who have penises changing in women's change rooms.

And the crucial thing to understand is, these matters have NOT been clearly defined. Speech laws are changing when we haven't even framed the discussion.

I think the solution to this is third spaces. Single change rooms and different shelters for trans people. Trans people have different mental/physical health needs anyway. There used to be a trans only clinic in my city and since it shut down the trans community has been talking about how inadequate the regular healthcare system is.

Calling this conversation transphobic is just a way to avoid having it, which is just another oppressive tactic of the radical left.

I'm also against giving children biochemical or surgical alterations to their bodies based on gender ideology. It should be illegal until they're 18.

The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. -W.A.

Murdering transwomen of colour while calling themselves oppressed, is just another oppressive tactic of the radical right.

trans women who APPEAR as men will still get the privileges that come with male presentation in society.

Male presentation causes dysphoria and depression in transfem and discrimination still, if out.

Single change rooms and different shelters for trans people.

No deal. Every country and place that has tried self id, has implemented it with no problems. Listen to them. I know a place thats done it for 20 years with 0 incidences. I know for a fact that womens services there reach out to the trans community repeatedly because barely any ever show up. The idea of the entitled transwoman or crossdresser forcing their way in and dominating womens spaces with male privilege is a media creation.

Nope, the arguments of the radical left are not based in science. They are based in ideology. People doing gender studies in college are not simultaneously taking biology, anthropology, or world history. Based the arguments we are seeing, they are not scientific.

Pikachu wrote:Murdering transwomen of colour while calling themselves oppressed, is just another oppressive tactic of the radical right.

Nobody's talking about murdering them. We're talking about free speech and the discourse of biological women vs. trans women and their needs in society. Don't change the subject.

That's not connected to what I'm saying, though. What they experience internally is different than how they're treated externally.

Someone who presents as a man will be treated like a man, even if they feel like a woman. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's just factual.

Shelters for women fleeing male abuse are going to have problems with "women" who present as males.

Pikachu wrote:No deal. Every country and place that has tried self id, has implemented it with no problems. Listen to them. I know a place thats done it for 20 years with 0 incidences. I know for a fact that womens services there reach out to the trans community repeatedly because barely any ever show up. The idea of the entitled transwoman or crossdresser forcing their way in and dominating womens spaces with male privilege is a media creation.

Different countries may have different needs. I myself use the family changeroom at the gym, as I don't like changing with other males.

Rather than shove an ideology down everyone's throats, why not just create a third option as a compromise? It minimizes the potential for conflict as society acclimatizes to the idea of trans people.

The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. -W.A.

Nobody's talking about murdering them. We're talking about free speech and the discourse of biological women vs. trans women and their needs in society. Don't change the subject.

I don't think Pikachu was changing the subject. I thought ze was responding to the idea that trans people are somehow oppressing women, which isn't possible since as a group, they don't have that power. And example of that power differential is looking at murders. There's also room to assign blame for the murder of transwomen of color to an organization that would deny them safe lodging in a women's safe house.

The trans movement so far has been perpetuated by the academic institutions and has been very top down. We are seeing rules legislated that are not based on movements, and these rules are actually oppressing feminism!

This isn't true. The trans movement had been going on for a long time before academia deemed it interesting. In many ways it was co-opted by the gay rights movement, much as the civil rights movement was co-opted by feminism. But what are the effects of the legislation on feminism? I don't know. I have a differing opinion from you.

Similarly, there is something to be said for MTF trans who still have male anatomy which informs their personal expression, i.e. increased aggression. There are biological realities about the differences between sexes that are not essentialism, they are just factual. Like men and women can be disagreeable, but on the extreme ends of agreeability and disagreeability, the most disagreeable people are men and the most agreeable people are women. Men are more aggressive and women are more compliant. It has been proven cross-culturally.

This is also not true. The best example I have is bar fights in Finland. In one of the countries considered to have the most gender equality in the world, women are just as likely to get into a bar fight as a man with the same rates of danger and police involvement. Aggression and compliance aren't inherent behaviors.

I don't think Pikachu was changing the subject. I thought ze was responding to the idea that trans people are somehow oppressing women, which isn't possible since as a group, they don't have that power. And example of that power differential is looking at murders. There's also room to assign blame for the murder of transwomen of color to an organization that would deny them safe lodging in a women's safe house.

It's not trans people themselves who are seizing power. It's leftists seizing power in their name. Trans people just want human rights like anybody else, but the radical left, mostly prompted by academia via university administrations, is using them to create group think-speak similar to what happened under Marxism. The first thing that schools did in Russia under Marxism was usurp individual identity in favour of group identity, and they did that by first regulating speech and dividing people into camps. That's what all this hyper-focus on gender politics is doing on the campuses. Teachers are afraid to even speak because they might get reprimanded by school administrations. As the administrations gain more power, they can be influenced by outside forces (like politicians) to change speech policy on campuses. Once academia falls under control of the radical left, speech oppression fans out into the rest of society. That's why it's so important that colleges remain free speech zones. It's what first wave feminism concerned itself with! It's JUST as dangerous as what the radical right is trying to do to speech. It starts as political correctness and then becomes legislated speech laws. It has happened over and over in the 20th century, especially in the communist states.

The laws are changing about speech before there's even allowed to be real discourse about it. An Ontario law put into place recently says that you MUST call trans people by their preferred pronoun. MUST. It's the first time in the history of the Common Law that a certain kind of speech has been mandated. That should scare everybody.

How can we create laws to protect trans people when there is no real legal definition of what a trans person is? How do we define a woman? How do we define a man? The radical leftists refuse to define these things because it keeps the argument vague and gives them the ability to oppress speech. If you're against speech laws then you must be an oppressor. It spirals from there. What's worse is that some claim gender is 100% a social construction and there IS NO real "gender", ignoring the thousands of years of division of labour between the sexes through the agrarian age. This bourgeoise non-sense has to stop.

This isn't true. The trans movement had been going on for a long time before academia deemed it interesting. In many ways it was co-opted by the gay rights movement, much as the civil rights movement was co-opted by feminism. But what are the effects of the legislation on feminism? I don't know. I have a differing opinion from you.

The modern radical left's push toward speech reform is mostly coming from the college campuses now. Trans people are just the convenient prop, which is unfortunate because they have a real human cause.

This is also not true. The best example I have is bar fights in Finland. In one of the countries considered to have the most gender equality in the world, women are just as likely to get into a bar fight as a man with the same rates of danger and police involvement. Aggression and compliance aren't inherent behaviors.

You didn't read what I said properly. It requires knowledge of statistics.

At the median, both men and women are just as likely to be disagreeable or agreeable. It's when you look at the extreme ends that trends become clear. At the extreme end of disagreeability you find men; at the extreme end of agreeability you find women. It's why most of the prison population is men. It's why men get caught up in violent crime more often. It's why men are less likely to be involved in caring professions.

Funny you mention Sweden. It has the highest gender equality index in the world, and guess what happened? Men and women defaulted to gender roles. The caring professions are mostly occupied by women and the STEM fields are mostly occupied by men.

I'm not proposing biological determinism. I'm saying that you can't completely ignore biology. It's not all just an ideological construct that we're taught. Some of it is, yes, but not all. Biology, hormones, and neurophysiology inform interests and preferences. Removing that from the picture is totally dishonest and also unscientific! I don't believe that you can totally change your gender at will, on an ideological basis. Biology informs a piece of that. If we're going to create speech laws then they need to be informed on science, and so far the science is lacking in these ideological pushes for speech legislation.

The radical left is trying to say that there's no gender, or gender is totally fluid, or gender is totally an ideological choice. It's a lie. Gender is only an ideological choice if biology is removed from the picture, which is exactly what most gender studies programs are doing. They're doing this through trans causes, but it actually has little to do with trans. It's about group conformity and speech control. Ironically, this is where the rightist and the lefists share a commonality: anti-intellectualism.

Force people in gender studies to take biology, anthropology, and world history courses. Reintroduce actual science into the picture. The ideological aspect is rampant with no empirical control.

The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. -W.A.

I disagree with the conspiracy theory being posed between academia, far-leftists, and anti-science people using trans people as their platform. To take up one point:

Nope, the arguments of the radical left are not based in science. They are based in ideology. People doing gender studies in college are not simultaneously taking biology, anthropology, or world history. Based the arguments we are seeing, they are not scientific.

What's your standing for making this claim? It raises several red flags:

1. Women's Studies and Gender Studies departments tend to be interdisciplinary, in the sense that their faculty often do research or teach in multiple fields. Departments are tremendously varied from university to university, but it's pretty common to have at least one faculty member with experience in biology. For instance, Deboleena Roy is housed in a women's studies department at Emory but her PhD is in Biology and she's affiliated with the Neuroscience faculty.
2. Students are often simultaneously taking biology, anthropology, or world history. Many students majoring in an interdisciplinary field like Women's Studies end up minoring or majoring in another field as well. The reasons why are many - people tell them they can't get a job with only that major, their own professors recommend getting a bit of breadth for experience, they are intellectually curious or ambitious students. Biology and Psychology are among the most common paired minors/double majors. Even if they aren't doing that, all students still need to fulfill general education requirements.
3. Women's studies and gender studies are not making the facile arguments you claim, like this one:

The radical left is trying to say that there's no gender, or gender is totally fluid, or gender is totally an ideological choice. It's a lie.

I'm trying to think of a prominent feminist scholar who has made a claim like this, and I'm coming up empty. I can think of scholars who have been misinterpreted as saying something resembling this, but since the 1990s I'd almost invert what you're saying. It'd be more accurate to say that scholars agree that:
1. Gender, as an experience of who we are or as an identity, is pretty hard to budge;
2. Gender definitely exists, in the sense that it structures our society and we experience it every day;
3. Gender is not an ideological choice, but what forms of gender we allow to prosper in society and what conditions we set on acceptable gender presentation could qualify as deeply held ideological choices.

There's a lot of generalization there, but a lot of criticism has come from within academia on how fluid gender is, how it may be connected to biology, and so on. The actual science is going on. Researchers can do better and they're fallible, but they're not the Great Conspirator with the Leftists.

To tie all this back into the topic, it's dangerous to reject a point of view from the basis of ignorance of that point of view. Meghan Murphy doesn't understand much about the shelters or the trans experiences she's commenting upon, which limits her ability to make any useful comments on the situation. Rather than engaging with the currently precarious existence of transpeople, she primarily engages with the discomfort posed by transpeople to others. As a result, I find it hard to trust that she's arguing in good faith for an equitable solution.

I also wanted to mention Aum that it sounds like maybe you should look a bit more into current gender science. The scientific consensus is very different from what I think you think it is. A good easy to read intro guide is Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. I say this as a person who has a psychology degree and actually somehow never took any women's studies in university (not entirely sure how that happened).

Ontario also doesn't ban not using correct pronouns unless to the point of harassment, discrimination (ex. housing, employment), or hate speech. This the same protection given under the human rights code to discrimination due to citizenship, race, place of origin, ethnic origin, colour, ancestry, disability, age, creed, sex or pregnancy, family status, marital status, and sexual orientation.http://sds.utoronto.ca/blog/bill-c-16-n ... un-misuse/http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/questions-and- ... d-pronouns
Interestingly I've also taken some employment law courses. It is very difficult to file a compliant under these grounds. Usually there needs to have been a pattern of harassment. It also can be very hard to prove and very costly for those who go through the process. This is not outside the law. This is allowing the law to defend trans people when they are being specifically attacked.

What's your standing for making this claim? It raises several red flags:

1. Women's Studies and Gender Studies departments tend to be interdisciplinary, in the sense that their faculty often do research or teach in multiple fields. Departments are tremendously varied from university to university, but it's pretty common to have at least one faculty member with experience in biology. For instance, Deboleena Roy is housed in a women's studies department at Emory but her PhD is in Biology and she's affiliated with the Neuroscience faculty.

The way the activism is manifesting is anti-science and pro-rhetoric. It's a power-over approach that focuses on reforming speech rules on campus, to the point that it even affects faculty. The interdisciplinary aspect is not mandatory, but it should be. Science should be mandatory, as well as history, and these courses should be kept separate and objective from gender studies. i.e. the teachers who teach gender studies should have zero affiliation with the sciences being taught, or the history. Separate departments.

There's a lot of bourgeois elitism in feminist academia and it comes from ivory tower academics with a silver spoon who have zero relationship to the ground level.

2. Students are often simultaneously taking biology, anthropology, or world history. Many students majoring in an interdisciplinary field like Women's Studies end up minoring or majoring in another field as well. The reasons why are many - people tell them they can't get a job with only that major, their own professors recommend getting a bit of breadth for experience, they are intellectually curious or ambitious students. Biology and Psychology are among the most common paired minors/double majors. Even if they aren't doing that, all students still need to fulfill general education requirements.

Again, that may be true of some, but it's not how the leftist rhetoric is shaping activism. One thing Murphy accurately points out is that the language is intentionally left unclear so that we can't define the terms properly, and in turn have a real discussion about it.

I'm trying to think of a prominent feminist scholar who has made a claim like this, and I'm coming up empty. I can think of scholars who have been misinterpreted as saying something resembling this, but since the 1990s I'd almost invert what you're saying. It'd be more accurate to say that scholars agree that:

1. Gender, as an experience of who we are or as an identity, is pretty hard to budge;
2. Gender definitely exists, in the sense that it structures our society and we experience it every day;
3. Gender is not an ideological choice, but what forms of gender we allow to prosper in society and what conditions we set on acceptable gender presentation could qualify as deeply held ideological choices.

I have been following some prominent feminists and psychologists who are making observations contrary to yours. Many of them are college professors. I've also observed what they are talking about in a lot of the feminist/queer circles I've attended on talks like this. Gender is being twisted into an ideological format as a means to challenge so-called patriarchy (which doesn't exist) while sidestepping human history. There is a clear agenda at work.

There's a lot of generalization there, but a lot of criticism has come from within academia on how fluid gender is, how it may be connected to biology, and so on. The actual science is going on. Researchers can do better and they're fallible, but they're not the Great Conspirator with the Leftists.

You can stop mocking me by framing what I say as a conspiracy theory or that I am talking about leftists as though I'm some wingbat. That is a typical leftist ploy and you're wandering into dangerous territory every time you do it. Please keep it mature. Leftism AND rightism are a problem in America right now. Leftism is largely based on the social ideology of political correctness, and it comes from a (mis)interpretation of what's coming out of academia.

You can't use political correctness to force somebody to respect you. It'll never happen.

To tie all this back into the topic, it's dangerous to reject a point of view from the basis of ignorance of that point of view. Meghan Murphy doesn't understand much about the shelters or the trans experiences she's commenting upon, which limits her ability to make any useful comments on the situation. Rather than engaging with the currently precarious existence of transpeople, she primarily engages with the discomfort posed by transpeople to others. As a result, I find it hard to trust that she's arguing in good faith for an equitable solution.

You obviously didn't watch the video (and that's fine, it's long and requires time). She was co-panelled by a woman who was part of the feminist movement to create the shelter system, and who currently works in shelters. Her commentary was much, much more pointed than Murphy's, which is why Murphy had her on as an expert.

I found both their points rather salient. In BC, we have school boards that are instructing teachers to allow this gender fluidity non-sense in the classroom, by catering to parents who are pushing gender ideology on their children. They are expected to call boys girls and girls boys based on totally arbitrary defining factors invented by parents. Psychology and psychiatry have very clear definitions of what defines a trans person and those definitions have largely been bolstered by genuine academic and scientific research in the past 25+ years. But let's just throw that out the window and let ideological parents run the education system.

In Ontario and BC, you used to have to get multiple psychiatric reports and medical reports in order to get sex reassignment surgery. As of last year, the law has changed it to an elective procedure. If you can find a doctor willing to do the surgery, then you can get it done. It's madness. There's no scientific intervention to temper this hyperfocus gender madness. People can permanently alter their bodies without even knowing if it's truly right for them. I watched a documentary recently about trans people who got surgery and now they regret it. These laws also allow easier access for parents to get hormone blockers for their children.

Like, just what the hell are we doing?? Before we've really defined the conversation we are easing up on laws that let children have access to hormone therapies.

Genuine trans people account for a very small percentage of the human population. This hyper obsession with gender coming out of leftism is not appropriate. Even teaching children that they are cis or trans is wrong. 99.8% of the population is so-called "cis", it doesn't even bear talking about.

Similarly, you have leftists running around telling people that the past 5000 years of agrarian division of labour didn't exist and there is no major difference between men and women; that we should allow biological men into women's sports leagues because they are allegedly equal to biological women just because they say so; that boys can try on being girls during a crucial developmental period when we don't yet know the consequences; that we should just carte blanche the women's shelter system by letting in biological males who present as males without having a real discussion about how we are going to handle the fallout of that; that gender conformity is merely a social construct and that anyone who says otherwise is being part of the oppressive patriarchy; that the patriarchy is even a "thing" (speaking of conspiracies).

These IDEAS should not be taught as FACTS in school. Not until we know for sure what we're talking about. Further, we should not be making pro-speech laws to support ideologies that are not yet tested and have no real consensus, even within the leftist communities pushing them. When pressed, leftists cannot define these things.

We all agree that nobody can be whatever they want just because they say so. Yet we can't define what makes a man, a woman, or a trans person. It's like a sacred cow that nobody wants to touch, yet we're inventing laws that require us to call trans people what they want to be called when there's real push back as to how that doesn't quite make sense.

In other words, it's a top-down approach. Think about how feminism started... it started with women getting together and talking. Then they realized they were all having the same shitty experiences. Then it became a movement, and then that movement caused laws to be changed. That isn't happening with trans people and gender ideology. It's top-down, mostly from the academic institutions.

I also wanted to mention Aum that it sounds like maybe you should look a bit more into current gender science. The scientific consensus is very different from what I think you think it is. A good easy to read intro guide is Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine. I say this as a person who has a psychology degree and actually somehow never took any women's studies in university (not entirely sure how that happened).

I have looked into it, actually... but these authentic researchers are not representative of the leftist demagogues that have infected campuses with censorship rules and control of faculty speech. Neurosexism is a huge topic but it doesn't really relate to the things I'm talking about. Biological males have bigger hearts and lungs, more muscular capacity, higher endurance. This doesn't make them "superior" (which is a feminist issue that bears itself out repeatedly), but it's a biological fact. It's why biological females can't compete against them in sports without losing, for the most part. It's why sports leagues are sex based. Neurodivergence is an important factor in this conversation and it's why I mentioned previously that, at the median, men and women have a lot of overlap. At the median, men and women are relatively neurotypical. But the median is not where the psychology research is focused, it's at the polar ends... like men being more disagreeable and women being more agreeable.

Oh but it does. Because Canadian universities are public institutions, they have to adopt these speech policies, which means professors can be fired if they don't call a trans person what they want to be called. It's bogus because until you define what a trans person even is, anyone can bend this rule to cause censorship on campus or to go after academic authorities. Leftists are doing this. It's happening in campuses all over the United States.

The fact is, I should not have to call anyone anything I don't want to. Social mores should dictate morality and decency. If they don't, then you better step up your activism.

It's the principle of the rule existing at all that is a huge problem. The government should never be able to legislate that people have to use a certain language. It's just as bad as censorship.

Interestingly I've also taken some employment law courses. It is very difficult to file a compliant under these grounds. Usually there needs to have been a pattern of harassment. It also can be very hard to prove and very costly for those who go through the process. This is not outside the law. This is allowing the law to defend trans people when they are being specifically attacked.

There need to be *some* protections, but they have to be within reason. A lot of the workplace legislation is actually harming the relationships between men and women, because as the Wall Street Journal recently showed, men on Wall Street simply won't meet with women anymore under any circumstances. I have to side with Camille Paglia's controversial view on this. For thousand of years division of labour between the sexes was based on biological capabilities. That then informed social standards. The whole thing was designed to create the best chance of survival for infants. The environments were largely homosocial.

For the first time ever in history we have men and women, largely independent from one another (in the bourgeois class), mingling in a work environment. The historical social order is totally changed and I don't think it's a bad thing. BUT... as Paglia points out, we are going through a major adjustment period. In her day, Paglia said that college campuses had a curfew for women. Women had to fight for the right to risk rape in order to have their own night lives. Now women want authority to step back in and protect them from every little incursion that happens to them. Are women really ready to be treated as equals to men?

I mention this because I feel like trans oppression is along the same lines. You deserve some protections, but only to a point. Work place discrimination and harassment is unacceptable, but so is furthering the rules to bend speech to your will. Eventually the social morality has to bear itself out and the truth of it become integrated into the every day psyche. You can't do that at knife point.

I will NOT call a trans person by their pronoun BECAUSE THE LAW TELLS ME TO. I will do it because it's the right thing to do and human beings deserve respect. Freedom of speech is sacred. I would also like to see an end to this leftist theme of blaming men for everything. Men are not responsible for what ails modern women or even trans people. It's simply a concept that hasn't gone mainstream to the degree that it eventually will, and eventually trans will join the ranks of other integrated minorities. However, that does not mean the rest of society should have to become genderfuck, which it is in pop culture. I'm looking forward to this experimental period ending so that we can go back to business as usual. The small minority need to take their place among the ranks and the leftists have to stop fucking with the social order that most people are OK with. The overwhelming majority are the gender of their sex, just deal with it.

The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote to the emptiness of existence. -W.A.

A free speech zone will reflect the biases of outside society with free speech. So if the outside society is transphobic overall, it would be transphobic within college. To have a different environment in college, you have to consciously work against the external paradigm.

"How do we define a woman?"

For the purposes of feminist activism, a woman is someone who is subjected to misogyny/sexism in a patriarchy.

How much longer are we going to be stuck demanding trans people justify their existence by asking for the definition of "woman" over and over? The debate needs to move on from the existential and theoretical and into practical questions like how can we help and how would trans people like to be helped.

The radical left is trying to say that there's no gender, or gender is totally fluid, or gender is totally an ideological choice. It's a lie. Gender is only an ideological choice if biology is removed from the picture, which is exactly what most gender studies programs are doing.

Good. Remove it. Biology has been used as a tool of oppression for long enough.

Genuine trans people account for a very small percentage of the human population. This hyper obsession with gender coming out of leftism is not appropriate. Even teaching children that they are cis or trans is wrong. 99.8% of the population is so-called "cis", it doesn't even bear talking about.

Actually it does. Because normalizing trans people may prevent stuff like this:

"Genuine" transpeople, as a term is creating a model minority and invalidating those who don't fit. One can't pull that move in a society that actively tries to prevent people's transition and prevent people from being able to conform to the model minority of a "genuine" trans person.